


To Forge the Steel

by kristin



Category: Assassins (musical)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2008, recipient:nextian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-15 06:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/157882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristin/pseuds/kristin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leon Czolgosz was not too fond of people. In fact, he liked the concept of `the people' far more than individuals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Forge the Steel

**Author's Note:**

> This fic would be far worse without the amazing beta powers of wrabbit, aka mel, and truth.

Leon Czolgosz was not too fond of people. In fact, he liked the concept of `the people' far more than individuals. Therefore he was distraught to find himself haunted by people who would not leave him be. Their continual presence was far more irritating than the fact that they surely did not exist outside of his head.

It had been a quiet day of contemplation when the first specter appeared. He had been going to take walk when he spotted a comrade from one of the Cleveland anarchist meetings. He turned away in disgust. The last time Leon had attended a meeting, the fools still assumed that he was a government agent, not understanding the importance of their own message. They thought such passion must be feigned, a trick of the government.

Their continual refusal to put their words into deeds made them distrust him. They assumed anyone who dared point out that violence was a solution must be an agent of the government. Their inaction made his attempts to root out the hypocrisy of these so-called democrats with necessary and just violence stand out. They would not do what they must, rather sticking to the plodding continual discussions of treatises and pamphlets.

"You know, all those pamphlets could be fuel for a large fire." A man, who Leon was quite sure had not been there a moment ago, drawled. He was lean with the foppish curls and ornate brocade of the elite from decades past. However, it was not the swift appearance or the antiquated dress that assured Leon that it was an apparition rather than a true human. No, it was because he recognized the face.

"The fires need a spark, though, don't they? They need a rallying call," John Wilkes Booth said as he left his lean against the doorframe. He began slinking over until he was face-to-face with Leon. "Have you ever lit a fire keg?"

Leon stepped back. He knew this was mad. It was a strange daydream brought about by too much plotting. His half thought out plan to attend the Pan American Exposition had driven him into bedlam territory. He shook his head and blinked his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision and mind. When that failed to make Booth disappear he decided on action. He would walk right through the mirage and be on his way. He refused to let his own mind deceive him.

His mind appeared to be stronger than his flesh as in actuality Leon ended up flat on his back. He had been forced down by the intensity of slamming into the far too tangible form of Booth.

"In a hurry to get somewhere? One of those ineffectual meetings of anarchists, perhaps?" Booth queried as he extended a hand down to where Leon lay sprawled on the dusty street. "You and I both know it isn't meetings, it isn't those comrades of yours that change the world." At this awkward angle Booth towered, his rich clothes and southern elocution making him appear everything Leon and his comrades had been aiming to tear down from power.

Leon scorned the hand and pushed himself off of the ground. He turned away from this madness and went back into the house. He glared at the crucifix on the wall rather than turn looking to see if Booth would follow.

Leon slept and woke. His pants were torn from the fall. He read Goldman's latest treatise and liberated the newspaper from his father. Yet however much he tried to distract himself from thinking, the strange incident his mind kept circling back. His mind ran through outrageous scenarios in an attempt to reconcile his meeting with Booth with reality. He finally concluded the whole ordeal had been nothing but a waking dream. He must have run into someone while walking and incorporated that into the fancy.

"You really don't think that do you?" A man, who should not, could not, be in his room spoke. It was not Booth. This apparition young - he was slim and blond. Rather than being adorned in high fashion like the theatrical Booth, he was dressed simply in a white undershirt and jeans. This was not some disaffected actor. He exuded naivete rather than flamboyance. He had the same air about him that surrounded far too many aspiring anarchists - the ones who talked and talked about the injustices of the world then balked at Leon's suggestions to actually change anything.

He also appeared to have replied to Leon's thought.

"Who are you?" Leon said. He wanted answers now. One such vision could be explained away but a second was surely a symptom of insanity. If he was to be cursed with specters he might as well discern their aim in appearing. He stood from his bed and walked towards where the apparition stood bathed in the tepid glow of light from the attic window. "Why are you here?"

"We won't go away." The smile on the young man's face was too sickly saccharine to achieve any semblance of benevolence. "I'm just here to give you the other side of the story."

Answers were apparently not forthcoming. Leon felt his temper flare. His words should not be ignored by this small man. "Leave" he demanded.

"I have to stay as long as they are here. You have to know why you can't -"

"I said, leave." Leon was determined to banish this insanity from his room.

However, the spirit did not leave. He kept standing there smiling, gazing around the room with apparent happiness. Leon did not share this feeling. He was determined to stand firm during this encounter rather than retreat.

So they both stood, the stranger with his buffoonish grin and Leon pointedly ignoring it. When his legs began to feel the ache of standing too long; he pointedly picked up a book and made of show of dismissing the other man's presence. This show did not appear to thwart the blond in the least.

"Now isn't this quite the impasse?" Booth's southern accent stretched the last syllable into a strange key. Leon did not look from his book. He could feel Booth's presence close by.

"He won't go away until he thinks you won't do it. Of course, I'm here to see that you do." Booth's voice was closer now. The book, which Leon could not name for all he had been staring at it, was lifted out of his hands. He looked up to see Booth, who had an amused smirk punctuating his face. A face that was far too close to Leon's own.

"And I know you, Leon Czolgosz, who calls himself Neiman, the new man. You've been thinking about it ever since you saw the article about Gaetano Bresci." Leon hissed a breath as Booth continued, "You heard his story and knew what must be done. You carry his picture with you like a smitten schoolgirl."

Booth reached out his hands to anchor Leon's face, forcing their eyes to meet. The hands were colder than skin should be. "You can tear down this hypocrisy. You can be at the head of the line. You can be the one there - the head of the government fallen before you. Chaos, Leon, chaos," described Booth.

Through this speech Leon's temper had gone from a low blaze to an inferno. This man, this caricature of a historical figure, presumed to know what he was thinking. He rattled of facts and made allusions to things he should not know. Yet Leon could not bring himself to speak. Booth radiated a charisma that compelled attention. His voice was more like a chant than dialogue - a secular prayer for destruction. Their eyes stayed locked.

"People don't fall to chaos because one person dies." The unknown man's voice cut through the vision Booth had been conjuring. His words brought the conversation back to reality. Or, at least as close as this mad situation could be.

"People are stronger than that. This country is stronger than that. The citizens won't repudiate the government; they will embrace it," the young man continued speaking, seeming not to mind that Leon still had yet to look away from Booth." The people, Czolgosz, the people you claim to champion, will keep the country from that chaos Johnny Booth promises you. They won't unite against the government, they will unite against you. The government you hate will be the ones to keep a mob from killing you."

Leon felt his cheeks grow hot with rage, warring with the palpable chill radiating out from where Booth's hands remained on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, but this attack left him speechless. Before he could spit out words the unnamed man removed one of Booth's hands with his own, allowing Leon to turn his eyes from Booth's. The blond's smile was still in place, a counterpoint to Booth's smirk. His head was held between the two apparitions' hands, chaining him to this bedlam.

He tuned out the young man's words and tried to make sense out of this moment. If he subscribed to the theories of his stepmother he supposed he was in Purgatory, being counseled by both an angel and a devil. Leon did not hold with such superstitions. He was a man of logic. In any case the angel was ineffective. He spoke of mobs and people persevering as if that would change his mind. Leon had always known that if his plan were to succeed he would not survive it.

McKinley's death was more important than Leon's life. It would show the world the power of a small man to topple a powerful one. A member of the proletariat could destroy the boss of the country. These arguments could not dissuade him from that point.

He tuned back in to hear the ineffective angel say, "Why are you even thinking about this Czolgosz? You think it is because you want to destroy the oppressors. But I know you. You live the life of recluse, locked up against the world, trying to return the world to the people-"

Weary of this talk, now that his mind was set, Leon shut his eyes. When he opened them again he was no longer in his room. The world around was dark, with skeletal ribs soaring up into darkness. The light was not the dingy sunlight seeping through his poorly shielded window, but glowed in colors fantastical, some spinning like stars brought to a low orbit. The noise reminded him of the factory, all clanks and whistles with no apparent source.

The blond man shook his head sadly as he said, "I had hoped you would change your mind." He caught himself and started smiling again as he continued, "Doesn't matter, I'm sure I'll win in the end."

He started to whistle as he walked away. Booth joined in the whistling, turning the tune to a minor key. The whole scene was so ridiculous Leon took a moment to stare before he unleashed the rage that had been piling in his mind.

"What have you done? Where are we? Tell me Booth! You must tell me!"

"It's a fair. Not quite the same as the fair you attend in life but it all serves a purpose," Booth answered cryptically. Leon grabbed Booth by his overly rich collar and pushed him against one of the posts.

"Why am I here?"

"You made up your mind. You are here for the same reason I am here. To put on a show, to perpetuate the anger, to convince and ensnare," Booth said calmly, not struggling against the hands at his throat. "We are outcasts Leon, every one of us. We had no true community in life so we have one here outside of life."

Leon's anger ebbed, leaving his mind full of questions. "Am I dead?" he queried. Booth laughed as Leon loosened his grip. His hands came up to bracket Leon's, gripping them close. Leon could feel the calm steady pulse of Booth's heartbeat. He flexed his hands against it, waiting still for a reply.

"You are as dead as you are alive here. There is no time here. Or perhaps there is, but it doesn't quite work. It is as twisted as our minds," explained Booth. His hands were tracing Leon's arms back to his shoulders, then his neck where they rested, mirroring his pose.

Leon was still caught up in questions. There were too many to voice at once and he did not trust Booth to answer the questions he did ask. He tried anyway.

"Is everyone here...," Leon began, trying to think of the best phrasing, "Are all of us killers?"

"Oh yes, even if we don't all quite know it yet," Booth answered. He dropped his arms and Leon followed suit. "I do believe you will be the first to arrive. I do like to make an entrance."

Off in the distance Leon could hear music swelling - drums and horns interspersed with gunshots. He tried to ask another questions, to get a real answer, but Booth pushed him through a gap in the posts then disappeared.

In front of him was a carnival barker who called out to him:

"Hey, pal- feelin' blue?  
Don't know what to do?  
Hey, pal-  
I mean you-  
yeah.  
C'mere and kill a president."


End file.
